Claisse plots a course

Imagine a job having to tend a minefield, a 58-acre minefield. Not everyone would jump at the chance. Yet the same field is one of dreams, of fairytale fantasies, and that is why the new holder of the job, Simon Claisse, is in for a wild ride as clerk of the course at Cheltenham.

In time he will get to know every inch of every course - the wet patches, the slackholes, the daunting fences, the incline of that famed hill - just as much as the foibles of those who use it, the trainers, the jockeys and the horses that so enrich it. Though he has been in the job since May after shadowing his indefatigable predecessor Philip Arkwright, it is showtime for Claisse this weekend as he prepares the going for his first gala meeting - the Open 2000.

This is the old Mackeson Gold Cup weekend, staging post for the start of serious business in the jumps season. For Arkwright, it meant a dry run toward the Festival the following March, for Claisse it will be a voyage of self discovery.

A bookish but young-looking 40, he is going to need the serenity to deal with downpours and the nerve to take decisions affecting major meetings based on little more than a weather forecast.

"What impressed me with Philip was how casual he always looked, yet you knew everything was going through his mind - that's what I'd like to achieve," admits Claisse, whose first meeting in charge last month left him red-faced after a horse with a winning chance ran out because of the absence of a tape closing off the route back around the course.

Claisse accepted responsibility, as was his right, while unusually groundstaff mumbled about a cut in their numbers for the new season.

He added: "I was surprised how supportive people were the following day. It wasn't the best of starts."

Claisse already knew that gaining the trust of trainers would be paramount and so drew up a list of 36 names to go and meet.

He would need to convince at least a few that after 10 years working for the Jockey Club, which owns the racecourse, that his appointment from 75 applicants was fair and deserved, and so far he has received a well-balanced reception. Of course, the guile and the wrath of some of Britain's jump trainers is legion, even with David Nicholson retired, and Claisse is expecting the inevitable pressure to turn the going to attract certain horses and then the angry blast when it fails to suit a particular horse.

He said: "I'm sure that is to come. At the same time, I come strongly from a horse welfare point of view and as much as I want competitive racing, I also want to reduce the risk of injury. I'm sure trainers would support that."

Signs of the fledgling diplomat there, but some desperately difficult decisions will lie ahead.

The focus on Cheltenham is intense enough at the best of times, but come the Festival he may have to follow Arkwright's lead of wearing a metaphorical tin helmet and keeping a z-bed in the office to sleep over when it gets busy. Claisse commented: "I can be laid back, but there are times when I worry.

"I was very worried before our first meeting. The ground was quick and the heavy rain forecast wasn't coming. I even spoke to Philip to ask him, 'Do we water?'

"I can already see I have a great team here led by head groundsman Reg Lomas and the three days this week will give me more of a feeling. The course is in great shape, though the forecast is diabolical."

One part of the job that concerns him more than the weather is the inevitable fatalities. Claisse himself compiled the report on the Jockey Club investigation into the 10 horse deaths that marred the 1996 Festival, the shock of which nearly prompted Arkwright's resignation.

Claisse has lost four of his own horses to accidents and as with those, his report could find no common thread to the Cheltenham fatalities. A few years earlier, he had borne the death of one of his best friends to racing. John Parrett, held in extraordinary esteem as the man who ran Aintree, was killed in a fall while out hunting.

Claisse recalls: "We were great chums and it was John who got me into racing administration. He was always up for a laugh. I remember during a seminar somewhere we took the wheels off Ron Barry's car at 4am and left it there on bricks for him to find the next morning."

The Goldilocks incident, too, will be long remembered. It happened the night Claisse put his car in a ditch on the way back from a fancy dress party and police had to contend with a Jockey Club official in tights and curly blonde wig, explaining what had happened.

In another episode in Jockey Club days, he took a call from racecourse inspector Barry in Grand National week to say badgers had been digging up the course and the start of the race must be moved. It was April 1, the ruse was twigged and passed on to be dealt with by a colleague.

There was no way out of another scrape, though. The name of Forest Musk must still bring a shiver to the spine. Claisse was ruled "not to have put his horse in the race" and was fined £125 for the cardinal sin of not trying in a point-to-point at Charing in Kent. At that time Claisse was the Jockey Club's point-to-point controller, and had been tireless in trying to improve standards of stewarding to spot such matters as non-triers.

Still, he was to have the last laugh. On applying for the Cheltenham job he knew he would have to undergo an exam at the Jockey Club.

Whose responsibility had it been to set the exam? Claisse, of course. He laughed: "Funnily enough, they changed a few of the questions."